McCain Knows Better

Via the Daily Background:

General James Jones recently returned from a Congressional-mandated trip to Iraq and reported that political reconciliation “is absolutely the key to measurable and rapid progress” and needed to happen before any significant reduction in violence could happen. On Meet The Press today, John McCain incorrectly claimed that General Jones did not conclude in his recent Iraq report that political reconciliation needed to happen before a drawdown in violence can be achieved:

MCCAIN: Tim, I’ve known Jim Jones for 30 years. That’s not what he’s saying.

In reality, this was exactly what Jones said, both in his report and on Meet The Press a week ago.

There's clips of McCain disputing what Mr. Jones said on Meet the Press at that link. It takes a certain amount of self confidence to say, on national television, something so clearly untrue. His reasons are obvious, the quote is unfavorable to his position of supporting president Bush's war. The biggest issue for the republican candidates will be their support for the war. While some of them have intelligently decided to distance themselves from Bush, others have latched themselves to Bush's policies in pursuit of appeasing the 29% that they perceive as the base. Hopefully, republicans will vote for change in the primaries instead of just more of the same.